Reversing course, Trump commits to open-ended Afghan war. NATO welcomes Trump’s decision

Reversing course from his campaign pledges, President Donald Trump on Monday night committed the United States to an open-ended conflict in Afghanistan, signaling he would dispatch more troops to America’s longest war and vowing “a fight to win.”

UPDATE: U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said on Tuesday that he was waiting for a plan from the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that follows President Donald Trump’s South Asia strategy before he makes a decision on how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan. “When he brings that to me, I will determine how many more we need to send in. It may or may not the number that is bandied about,” Mattis told reporters during a visit to Baghdad. U.S. officials have said Trump has given Mattis the authority to send about 4,000 additional troops to add to the roughly 8,400 already in Afghanistan.

UPDATE: Russia does not believe that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new strategy on Afghanistan will lead to any significant positive changes in the country, the Interfax news agency cited an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying on Tuesday.

UPDATE: Russia does not believe that U.S. President Donald Trump’s new strategy on Afghanistan will lead to any significant positive changes in the country, the Interfax news agency cited an unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying on Tuesday.

UPDATE: Afghan leader Ashraf Ghani on Tuesday welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump’s new strategy for the war in Afghanistan, which would remove timelines for withdrawal of remaining foreign troops.

“I am grateful to President Trump and the American people for this affirmation of support … for our joint struggle to rid the region from the threat of terrorism,” Ghani said in a statement.

Ghani said the new strategy would increase the capacity of the training mission for Afghan national security forces, including enhancing its fledgling air force and doubling the size of the Afghan special forces.

UPDATE: China defended its ally Pakistan on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump said the United States could no longer be silent about Pakistan’s “safe havens” for militants and warned it had much to lose by continuing to “harbour terrorists”.

Asked about Trump’s speech, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said Pakistan was on the front line in the struggle against terrorism and had made “great sacrifices” and “important contributions” in the fight.

“We believe that the international community should fully recognise Pakistan’s anti-terrorism,” she told a daily news briefing.

“We are happy to see Pakistan and the United States carry out anti-terror cooperation on the basis of mutual respect, and work together for security and stability in the region and world.”

China and Pakistan consider each other “all-weather friends” and have close diplomatic, economic and security ties.

China has its own security concerns in the region, in particular any links between militants in Pakistan and Afghanistan and Islamist groups China blames for violence in its far western region of Xinjiang.

“We hope the relevant U.S. policies can help promote the security, stability and development of Afghanistan and the region,” Hua said.

UPDATE: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Tuesday welcomed President Donald Trump’s decision to dispatch more troops to Afghanistan.

“NATO remains fully committed to Afghanistan and I am looking forward to discussing the way ahead with (Defense) Secretary (James) Mattis and our Allies and international partners,” Stoltenberg said in a statement.

NATO has 12,000 troops in Afghanistan, and 15 countries have pledged more, Stoltenberg said.

UPDATE: Britain on Tuesday welcomed a commitment by U.S. President Donald Trump to step up the military campaign against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

Britain along with other European allies pledged more troops to support Afghanistan’s military in June, with U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis saying at the time that troop numbers in the country had been reduced too rapidly.

“The U.S. commitment is very welcome,” British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said in a statement.

“In my call with Secretary Mattis yesterday we agreed that despite the challenges, we have to stay the course in Afghanistan to help build up its fragile democracy and reduce the terrorist threat to the West.

“It’s in all our interests that Afghanistan becomes more prosperous and safer: that’s why we ‎announced our own troop increase back in June.”

UPDATE: A spokesman for the Afghan Taliban condemned on Tuesday U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he will keep American troops in Afghanistan with no set timetable for withdrawal.

“Instead of continuing of war in Afghanistan, Americans should have thought about withdrawing their soldiers from Afghanistan,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement issued hours after Trump’s televised speech on U.S. policy in Afghanistan and South Asia.

Mujahid said “as long as there is even one American solder in our country”, the Islamist insurgents would “continue our jihad”.

In a speech offering few specifics, Trump promised a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground against the U.S.-backed Afghan government and he singled out Pakistan for harboring militants.

“We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists,” he said in a prime-time televised address at a military base outside Washington.

Trump ran for the U.S. presidency calling for a swift U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and he acknowledged on Monday that he was going against his instincts in approving the new campaign plan sought by his military advisers.

“The consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable,” he said. “A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum that terrorists, including ISIS and al Qaeda, would instantly fill.”

The Republican president, who has criticized his predecessors for setting deadlines for drawing down troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, declined to put a time line on expanded U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.

Trump now inherits the same challenges as predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama, including a stubborn Taliban insurgency and a weak, divided government in Kabul. He is laying the groundwork for greater U.S. involvement without a clear end in sight or providing specific benchmarks for success.

U.S. officials said he had signed off on Defense Secretary James Mattis’ plans to send about 4,000 more troops to add to the roughly 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan.

Mattis said he had directed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to carry out the strategy and that he would be consulting with NATO and U.S. allies, several of which had also committed to increasing troops.

‘NOT A BLANK CHECK’

Trump warned that U.S. support “is not a blank check,” and insisted he would not engage in “nation-building,” a practice he has accused his predecessors of doing at huge cost.

Through the speech, Trump insisted that others – the Afghan government, Pakistan, India and NATO allies – step up their own commitment to resolving the 16-year conflict.

Trump saved his sharpest words for Pakistan.

“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens,” Trump said. “Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor terrorists.”

Senior U.S. officials warned he could reduce security assistance for Pakistan unless the nuclear-armed nation cooperates more in preventing militants from using safe havens on its soil.

A Pakistani army spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had taken action against all Islamist militants including the Haqqani network, which is allied to Afghan Taliban insurgents.

“There are no terrorist hideouts in Pakistan. We have operated against all terrorists, including (the) Haqqani network,” spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor told a media briefing in Islamabad.

Obama also took Pakistan to task for supporting militants, and sent Navy SEALs into the country to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. It remains to be seen if Trump’s rhetoric will change Pakistan’s calculations in Afghanistan, which it sees as a vital strategic interest.

Trump expanded the U.S. military’s authority for American armed forces to target militant and criminal networks. He said that U.S. enemies in Afghanistan “need to know they have nowhere to hide – that no place is beyond the reach of American arms.”

“Our troops will fight to win,” he added.

A U.S.-led coalition invaded Afghanistan and overthrew the Islamist Taliban government for harboring al Qaeda militants who plotted the Sept. 11 attacks. But U.S. forces have remained bogged down there through the presidencies of Bush, Obama and now Trump. About 2,400 U.S. forces have died in Afghanistan since the invasion.

PAST SKEPTICISM

The speech came after a months-long review of U.S. policy in which Trump frequently tangled with his top advisers on the future of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents have been making territorial gains.

U.S. military and intelligence officials are concerned that a Taliban victory over Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government would allow al Qaeda and Islamic State’s regional affiliate to establish bases in Afghanistan from which to plot attacks against the United States and its allies.

“The unfortunate truth is that this strategy is long overdue and in the interim the Taliban has made dangerous inroads,” said senior Republican Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Senator Jack Reed, senior Democrat on the committee, criticized what he called a speech short on details.

“President Trump now recognizes the need to stabilize the situation and assist the government of Afghanistan to regain momentum. But he was very vague,” Reed said.

Trump suggested he was hoping for eventual peace talks, and said it might be possible to have a political settlement with elements of the Taliban.

“But nobody knows if or when that will ever happen,” he said.

In a statement, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said: “We stand ready to support peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban without preconditions.”

Trump overcame his own skepticism about the war that began in October 2001. He said repeatedly on the campaign trail last year that the war was too costly in lives and money.

“My original instinct was to pull out,” he said in his speech, but added he was convinced by his national security advisers to strengthen the U.S. ability to prevent the Taliban from ousting the government in Kabul.

Trump’s speech came as the president tries to rebound after he was engulfed in controversy for saying both sides were to blame for violence between white supremacists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, earlier this month.

In an allusion to the Charlottesville uproar, Trump said: “We cannot remain a force for peace in the world if we are not at peace with each other.”

U.S. commanders have long planned for a possible shift in resources from Iraq to Afghanistan as the fight against Islamic State comes off its peak, following gains made in the Iraqi city of Mosul and other areas.

One reason the White House decision took so long, two officials who participated in the discussions said on Sunday, is that it was difficult to get Trump to accept the need for a broader regional strategy that included U.S. policy toward Pakistan.

Trump received a wide range of conflicting options, the officials said.

White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster and other advisers favored accepting a request for an 4,000 additional U.S. forces.

But recently ousted White House strategic adviser Steve Bannon had argued for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces, saying the war was still not winnable, U.S. officials said. Bannon was fired on Friday by Trump.

Breitbart News, the hard-right news site to which Bannon has returned as executive chairman, said on its home page that Trump “reverses course” and “defends flip-flop in somber speech.”